You Should Know More about Panda

Panda is the most precious animal in the world and we often it panda. Panda becomes our first-grade national protected animal because it is especially scarce. There are two colors on its body. We often call it "China's national treasure". China is an only country which has panda. It belongs to Ursidae. Sichuan Province and Shanxi Province of China is panda's main habitats. Nowadays, approximately 1590 feral pandas live in our world. A grown panda can grow 120 to 190 centimeters. Its body weight can reach 85 to 125 kilograms. They eat bamboo to live. People like pandas because of their lovable appearance. In 1961, the World Wildlife Fund was founded and it chose panda as its symbol. It is an important symbol of species protection. In addition, it also represents the friendship between China and other countries.
Panda's ancestor is Ailuaractos lufengensis. Actually, its scientific name is Parailurus. It refers to a kind of bear which is alike to a cat. That is to say, essentially it is a bear, but it looks like a cat. Strictly speaking, "panda" is a wrong word. About the word "panda", let us see a story. Before 1949, Beibei Museum in Chongqing displayed the panda's sample. On the board, there was a word "Ailuropus". But, at that time, people were used to read a journal's title from right to left. Hence journalists made a mistake on this word and people got a word "panda". Because of medium, people knew this word "panda". People could not rectify this mistake, so they accepted this name. From then on, they call it "panda". In fact, scientists call it "Ailuropus" because its ancestor is similar with bear's. They are both carnivore.
Panda's fossil shows that its ancestors appeared in 2 to 3 million years ago. That was pluvial early period. Panda reached its zenith hundreds of thousands of years ago. It belongs to stegodon biota. Panda's habitats covered the most parts of China's east and south. These habitats included the parts between Beijing and Burma's south and Vietnam's north. People discovered panda's fossils in temperate rain forest or subtropical rainforest, whose height is 500 to 700 meters. Little by little, other species became extinct one after another. Yet today we can see pandas and they still maintain their old characteristics. These fossils have much scientific value, so these are regarded as "living fossils". We like to treat them as our national treasures. But there are only a few places that pandas can perch. These huge changes happened in modern times. In these several hundred years, we found that pandas' many habitats vanished. The reasons are China' population increased and people used abundant lands. Before, pandas lived in river valley, but now people are living there. Bamboos grow in the areas, whose heights are between 1200 to 3400 meters. So pandas must live there. At present, these pandas are on the verge of extinction. In order to protect them, the government has adopted many useful actions to deal with their problems. Now all the people of the whole world care about pandas' survive or perish. From now on, protecting pandas and their breeding are especially important. So we should find other habitats for them which are suitable to them. We can create a good living environment for pandas.